“Traditional music is not meant to return us to the Past, but to serve us in the Present and Future with wisdom gained in the Past,” writes James Leva in the liner notes to Memory Theatre. The album — essentially a collaboration with guitarist John Doyle of the Irish music group Solas — explores some of the forms that service might take.
Though there are guests scattered across the thirteen tracks here (notably Leva’s wife and usual musical partner, Carol Elizabeth Jones, and bassist Dave Grant), it’s the interaction of the two collaborators that’s central to the disc’s music. Thanks to the guitarist’s chordal and rhythmic techniques, that music — more or less evenly divided between traditional tunes and Leva’s well-crafted originals — not only fuses old-time and Gaelic sounds into something new, it shivers and reels with an energy frequently approaching that of rock ‘n’ roll.
Successful fusion efforts are few and far between, and history suggests they’re most likely to issue from musicians who have already mastered the elements of the traditions being merged. The ones who contributed to Memory Theatre fit that description perfectly, and what they have created is work that belongs on the short list of such successes. Forget the mostly bloodless exercises of the Songcatcher soundtrack; if a modernized take on Appalachian music and its roots is what you’re after, this album is the one to get.